Integrating knowledge across the engineering curriculum (original) (raw)
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Concept maps: Development and validation of engineering curricula
2007 37th annual frontiers in education conference - global engineering: knowledge without borders, opportunities without passports, 2007
Concept mapping has been traditionally used as a tool for active learning, student's learning assessment and evaluation. In an attempt to achieve student learning, curricula development and assessment have taken new and diverse approaches. Concept mapping is one novel way for curricula development and validation of program outcomes and their linkages with required skills and competencies' levels. Mechanical, Chemical, and Computer Engineering have used concept maps across a wide range of educational applications: from simply creating a conceptual overview of course objectives for students to using them for curricula evaluation and improvement.
"The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is collaborating with the government of Singapore to create a new university, the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). MIT is responsible for developing the curriculum for SUTD and has contributed to training the faculty in pedagogy. As part of curriculum development for what is called the “freshmore year” (the first three semesters), MIT’s Teaching and Learning Laboratory created a set of “curriculum maps” and “concept vignettes,” 15-minute videos designed to help students master pivotal concepts and critical skills in the freshmore year. This paper will begin by describing the process used to develop the curriculum maps, based on Grant Wiggins’s and Jay McTighe’s “backward design” process [1]. TLL senior staff and postdoctoral associates reversed engineered twelve courses in six fields (mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, design, and humanities) beginning with the learning objectives for each course. These objectives were grouped into five categories, which became the high-level learning outcomes for the entire three semesters. This exercise resulted in the “Concept Map,” which shows relationships among pivotal concepts and critical skills in these courses. Three additional maps illustrate skills that are needed for professional engineering and design practice:  problem solving, modelling, and communication. The maps were then used to select themes for the concept vignettes. These themes correspond to “concept nodes,” overarching motifs that appear in two or more pivotal concepts on the map. Narrated by MIT faculty, the concept vignettes include simulations, animations, mathematical representations, and diagrams, and are accompanied by instructors’ guides and supplemental materials. They have been designed for use both in the classroom and by students, either individually or in groups, to view on their own. The intention of the maps and the videos are to provide students with a coherent educational experience. Their goal is to allow students to see the relationships between topics and courses; introduce them to the interdependence of ideas among fields in science and engineering; and give them a roadmap to understand the connection between pivotal ideas and critical skills within the STEM disciplines. These curricular materials show students that the topics in their foundational courses are the building blocks of an engineering and design curriculum. We hope these materials will promote long-term retention and flexible retrieval of knowledge [2], helping students master more difficult material ahead, and, ultimately, be useful in their work as professional engineers and designers."
Concept Maps as a Tool for Engineering Education
Concept map application in engineering education is described. An effective role of concept mapping in the overall knowledge domain ontology is stressed. It is shown that the concept maps are a suitable tool to support teachers in promoting students' comprehension of learning material contents and improving their understanding of new concepts. Development of concept maps helps students to see what they have acquired from the classes, supports them in making connections between new and prior concepts, and reinforces knowledge integration by providing students with an activity that promotes such integration. Concept maps are regarded as a valuable tool of assessment procedures, as they provide an explicit and overt representation of learners' knowledge, informative, tutoring and reflective feedbacks tailored to learners' individual characteristics and needs.
Patterns of student conceptual understanding across engineering content areas
International Journal of Engineering Education, 2015
Much of the existing research on engineering students’ conceptual understanding focuses on identifying difficult concepts in specificcourses and curricula. Although there are a great number of findings from which engineering educators may be able to draw, feware directly transferable from their original context and few inform instructors about how to improve learning. This paper seeks tofill the gap by investigating conceptual understanding across four engineering disciplines. Specifically, the present study seeks toanswer the following overarching research question: What are the patterns in engineering students’ conceptual understanding acrossfour engineering content areas? We used an amplified secondary qualitative data analysis to examine over 250 interviews withengineering students that were initially conducted to understand students’ conceptual understanding in different disciplines ofengineering. The engineering topics represented in the data set included mechanics of material...
Integrating engineering into secondary math and science curricula: A course for preparing teachers
2011 Integrated STEM Education Conference, ISEC 2011, 2011
Future secondary math and science teachers, engineering education doctoral students and engineering graduate students participated in a graduate level course designed to provide strategies for integrating engineering in stand-alone or integrated environments. A hybrid setting of face-to-face and online instruction modeled project based learning that provided the opportunity for students to apply research based methods of integration and engineering instruction throughout the learning process. Concepts, knowledge and attitudes were assessed using student products, concept maps and student feedback.
Integrating The First Two Years Of Engineering Education
2020
The University of Florida (UF) is conducting an integrated engineering education experiment (covering the first two years of engineering education) for the Southeastern University and College Coalition for Engineering EDucation (SUCCEED), one of the National Science Foundation's Engineering Education Coalitions. The guiding purpose of this effort is to provide students the same benefits that have been achieved through total program integration while avoiding some major drawbacks of such schemes, such as significant changes in program administration. We propose a model different from the total integration model, which has dominated curriculum reform research. In our model, course and department frameworks remain intact. Instead, we are changing the way faculty teach and the way students' time is structured to increase learning efficiency. We have 100 students enrolled in the program and plan to work with them for two years. Special sections of Calc I and Chemistry I were taught in the Fall semester of 1995. Sections of Calculus II, Chemistry II and Physics I are in progress during Spring 1996. These special sections are reducing the dependence on lecture and relying more on active and group learning models. More "studio" classes are being used to improve learning.
Mapping An Undergraduate Curriculum Onto The Environmental Engineering Body Of Knowledge
2009 Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings, 2020
In spring 2008 the American Academy of Environmental Engineers released a draft of the Body of Knowledge for Environmental Engineering (EnvE BOK). The BOK outlines the skills and abilities that are needed to become a licensed Professional Engineer, and describes which should be acquired as part of an accredited Bachelor's degree. The ABET-accredited EnvE B.S. curriculum at the University of Colorado at Boulder has been mapped onto the BOK outcomes and knowledge domains. Most topics are well covered, however multimedia breadth and the knowledge domain of systems analysis are not the main focus of any required courses because our curriculum was built primarily from existing courses in Civil, Chemical, and Mechanical engineering. The outcomes of project management and business knowledge are covered primarily in the capstone design course.